...think the entire Subspace Emissary experience is like one big drug-induced hallucinatory dream?

I mean, come on! Bizarre stick figures with giant horns for heads that blow air at you, angry electrical clouds, giant eyeball/squid creatures... these are not the manifestations of a lucid mind!

But besides that, the solo mode is quite fun, and the multiplayer is phenomenal. Oh, but let me specify: local multiplayer is awesome - online, so far, has been trash. I've yet to connect to even one person in a 'fight anyone' brawl, and matches against friends were pure lagfests. Hopefully these are little more than launch day titters!

I love the new, more robust record-keeping system, too. It's fantastic that records are attached to names now. Everything about the experience has been polished and jammed with features to the point of near-saturation.

One gripe: why the hell can I STILL not see +1 near my character when I get a KO in stock matches? What were they thinking?

So this week, the first (of reportedly several) Grateful Dead track pack debuted for Rock Band, and god-DAMN are they awesome. I couldn't believe they would get the master tracks, but they do and they sound wonderful.

I've been incredibly stingy in buying songs for some reason, likely because I'm not rich, but I immediately bought this entire pack, and I already feel like these are the most fun guitar tracks in the game.

Truckin' is great and actually pretty challenging, as is Sugar Magnolia; the rest are slightly easier but an absolute joy to play - really just super fun.

Harmonix has done a sickeningly good job of supporting this fine product, and while I haven't loved every track they've released, I'm happy that a wide variety of tastes have been satiated. Compare this to GH3's non-existent to trash level of support, and you really start to feel like Neversoft/whoever doesn't care at all about their product.

Now, if full album downloads actually happen, and Harmonix releases GD's Anthem of the Sun, I might melt from the luminous utopia I'll be living in.

The new Ayreon album, 01011001, was released earlier this week, and I managed to get my hot little hands on a limited edition copy late last night. Having listened through both discs now... the album is amazing.

As with all Ayreon releases, production values are top-notch... better than anything you'll hear in today's popular music IMO. I'm going to need to listen to it many more times to develop a better opinion of individual tracks, as well as to understand the incredibly vague story.

This music isn't what I'd call mainstream (in fact, it's the opposite), but if you like prog concept albums with some metal flavor (among many other flavors) I highly recommend a purchase. The 5th Extinction might very well be one of my all-time Ayreon favorites already - check that one out on Arjen Lucassen's MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/ayreonauts

Oh yeah, and I've gotten back into playing COD4 online with some friends after a very brief session back in November (I think?), and it's unreal - so much fun.

I saw There Will Be Blood with a group of friends last night... amazing movie. Very powerful, and surprisingly captivating. I knew the movie was going to be great, but I didn't realize how truly gripping it would be. The film was pretty long, at roughly 2.5 hours, and I was glued to the screen throughout. Loved it.

While driving to the theater, I received a call from some other friends vehemently detracting the movie, including such phrases as, "It was boring!" and "Spend your money elsewhere." Fortunately, I ignored these pleas, and took in what I think will hold up as one of the best movies of 2008, if not the best. Yes, I know it's January.

As a Radiohead fan, I was excited about taking in Jonny Greenwood's composed music, and damn, it was dope.

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A few other things I should mention I've experienced lately: Blade Runner is amazing, Assassin's Creed has some amazing qualities and some horrible flaws, and Green Grass and High Tides on expert guitar was fucking sick.

When I was younger, as many people I'm sure were, I was fairly muddled when it came to my opinion on, well, anything. Movies, music, art, literature, whatever, I would support/detract one thing or another, with my opinion stemming from seemingly arbitrary space. As time has drawn on, I've developed and refined my tastes to a point where my interests are far more characteristically "me". No use in explaining what that's actually supposed to mean, but at least it makes sense in my head.

Anyways, forget all the other areas of interest, let's look at movies: I like them. I love some new movies, and I love lots of old movies. To accommodate the latter of these two substratum interests, I rent movies. When I was working my way through a lot of the real "classics", it was a fairly painless endeavor, as any video rental joint will carry "those". Now I'm moving only slightly into more obscure movies, and Blockbuster has come up entirely goddamn short.

I really only need to cite two personal examples to drive this point home, as these two flicks aren't even in the realm of what I'd call at all obscure. Memento from Christopher Nolan, and The Big Lebowski from the Coen Brothers. I've gone to several Blockbuster locations around town, and none have had either film in stock. I fear continued progress into my love of obscurity will yield little more than rage-inducing results. Let me be clear, though: these movies weren't "out" because someone had rented them, they were not a part of Blockbuster's inventory. They simply did not carry those movies.